Hollywood stars condemn Academy for not condemning No Other Land co-director abduction

As Israel’s ongoing attacks on Palestine continue to prove a divisive political issue, tensions in Hollywood came to a head this week after Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal was beaten by Israeli settlers and detained by soldiers in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank. Ballal’s No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham revealed on social media that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “refused” to issue a statement of support for Ballal, before or after he was freed; the Academy responded with a note to members that didn’t mention Ballal’s name and deferred to a large membership “with many unique viewpoints.” Now, hundreds of those members have signed a statement condemning the Academy’s vague letter.

Signatories of the new statement include members from all branches of the Academy, with names such as Olivia Colman, Joaquin Phoenix, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Emma Thompson, Sandra Oh, Sandra Hueller, Natasha Lyonne, Richard Gere, Elizabeth Olsen, Jim Jarmusch, Errol Morris, Adam McKay, Jonathan Glazer, Nia DaCosta, Todd Haynes, Alfonso Cuarón, Tony Kushner, and many more. Some of the signatories, like Mark Ruffalo, Ava DuVernay, Alex Gibney, and Fisher Stevens, have spoken out or signed their names on other statements of support in addition to this letter. More than 600 Academy members have added their name to this statement so far. The letter reads:

“On 26 March 2025, the leadership of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences emailed its membership a statement with the subject line, ‘Our Global Film Community.’ The statement was ostensibly responding to the detention of Palestinian filmmaker and 2025 Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winner Hamdan Ballal, one of the directors of No Other Land, although it failed to mention either Ballal or the film by name, nor did it describe the events it was responding to.

The statement by Bill Kramer and Janet Yang fell far short of the sentiments this moment calls for. Therefore we are issuing our own statement, which speaks for the undersigned members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank.

As artists, we depend on our ability to tell stories without reprisals. Documentary filmmakers often expose themselves to extreme risks to enlighten the world. It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later.

To win an Oscar is not an easy task. Most films in competition are buoyed by wide distribution and exorbitantly priced campaigns directed at voting members. For No Other Land to win an Oscar without these advantages speaks to how important the film is to the voting membership.

The targeting of Ballal is not just an attack on one filmmaker—it is an attack on all those who dare to bear witness and tell inconvenient truths.

We will continue to watch over this film team. Winning an Oscar has put their lives in increasing danger, and we will not mince words when the safety of fellow artists is at stake.”

Following his release on Tuesday, Ballal claimed that the Israeli soldiers who detained him mentioned the Oscar amid the violent abduction. His co-director Basel Adra has also spoken about increased violence since being awarded film’s most prestigious prize; both have expressed concern that the attacks are “revenge” for making No Other Land, and that they and their loved ones continue to be unsafe because of it. Meanwhile, the IDF has denied some of Ballal’s allegations, but said there may yet be more arrests for the violence that occurred on Monday.

Stateside, the Academy reacted to the backlash from members by calling an emergency meeting of the board of governors on Friday, according to Deadline. One executive committee member told the outlet that the communication from CEO Kramer and president Yang “was really missing the mark,” adding, “We just all found it completely horrifying. And that generated many, many people reaching out and writing letters just directly to Bill and Janet to say, ‘This doesn’t represent us. This is horrifying. How could you issue this kind of statement?’ And especially because it did not mention his name or the name of the film, which felt just like adding insult to injury.” You can check out the full list of Academy members who signed in support of the No Other Land filmmakers here.